Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (1st ed, 1768, vol III).djvu/419

Ch. 25. is at prefent the general doctrine of amendments; and it's rife and hiftory are fomevvhat curious. In the early ages of our jurifprudence, when all pleadings were ore temis, if a flip was perceived and objected to by the oppofite party or the court, the pleader inflantly acknowleged his error and rectified his plea; which gave occafion to that length of dialogue reported in the antient year-books. So liberal were then the fentiments of the crown as well as the judges, that in the ftatute of Wales, made at Rothelan, i2Edvv. I. the pleadings are directed to be carried on in that principality, fine calumpnia verborum, non obfer-vata ilia dura confuetudine, " qui cadit a Jyllaba cadit a tota caufa." The judgments were entered up immediately by the clerks and officers of the court ; and if any mif-entry was made, it was rectified by the minutes or the remembrance of the court itfelf.

the treatife by Britton was published, in the name and by authority of the king, (probably about the i^Edw. I. be- caufe the latl ftatutes therein referred to are thofe of Winchefter and Weftminfter the fecond) a check feems intended to be given to the unwarrantable practices of fome judges, who had made falfe entries on the rolls to cover their own mifbehaviour, and had taken upon them by amendments and rafures to falfify their own records. The king therefore declares u that " although we " have granted to our juftices to make record of pleas pleaded " before them, yet we will not that their own record (ball be a " warranty for their own v/rong, nor that they may rafe their " rolls, nor amend them, nor record them, contrary to their " original enrollment." The whole of which, taken together, amounts to this, that a record furreptitioufly or erronecufly made up, to ftifle or pervert the truth, mould not be a fanction for error ; and that a record, originally made up according to the truth of the cafe, mould not afterwards by any private rafure or amendment be altered to any linifter purpofe.

" Britt. fni'm. 2, 3. Rh